1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic bean curd manufacturing apparatus that is designed in order for a user to easily make bean curd at home, and more particularly, to an automatic bean curd manufacturing apparatus that can automatically perform an extracting process for extracting a bean juice by grinding beans as well as a heating process for making soymilk by heating the bean juice.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a bean curd is a kind of foodstuff that is made by steps of soaking beans in the water, making a bean juice by grinding the beans, heating the bean juice, removing bean curd residues from the bean juice, and adding coagulant to the bean juice. As the bean curd is a vegetable protein-rich food, it is most popular among the bean foodstuffs.
Describing the bean curd manufacturing process in greater detail, beans are first well washed and soaked in the water. Then, the soaked beans are ground while adding water little by little to be changed into bean curd residue. The bean curd residue is directly boiled in a kettle or heated by steam so that a bloody smell can be eliminated from the bean curd residue and the protein can be dissolved in the water.
Afterwards, the bean curd residue is squeezed using a hemp cloth so that the bean curd residue can be separated into soymilk and residues. At this point, when the bean curd residue gets cold, since it is difficult to squeeze the soymilk out of the same, it is preferable to squeeze the soymilk out when the bean curd residue is hot.
When the soymilk gets cold down to a temperature of 70xc2x0 C., a coagulant, a chief ingredient of which is magnesium chloride or calcium sulfate, is added to the soymilk to solidify the protein of the soymilk, after which the solidified stuff is disposed in a box in which a cotton cloth is spread out. Then, after a lid is disposed on the box, a stone is disposed on the lid to depress the solidified stuff so that the residual water can be drained through small holes formed on the box.
The box and the cotton cloth are removed from the bean curd in a state where the box with the bean curd is soaked in cold water. The bean curd removed from the box is soaked in the water for a predetermined time to remove the coagulant, whereby a delicious bean curd can be obtained.
A series of the above-described processes has been manually performed. Alternatively, the processes have been performed by a variety of separated apparatuses for each process.
That is, the bean juice extracting process and the soymilk making process have been independently performed by separated apparatuses. Therefore, it is difficult for a user to efficiently make a small amount of the bean curd at home. In addition, the separated apparatuses for each process cause the increase of the costs.
Accordingly, the consumers cannot make the bean curd by themselves at home, but have to buy the same that is mass-produced in factories. It would be advantageous for consumers to be able to produce bean curd to prevent a deterioration of freshness due to the delivery time.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to an automatic bean curd manufacturing apparatus that substantially obviates one or more problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic bean curd manufacturing apparatus that is designed in order for a user to easily make bean curd at home by automatically and consecutively performing an extracting process for extracting a bean juice by grinding beans and a heating process for making soymilk by heating the bean juice.
Additional advantages, objects, and features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned from practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these objects and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, there is provided an automatic bean curd manufacturing apparatus comprising a main body provided with a bean grinding chamber and a bean juice heating chamber; a driving motor installed in the main body; a rotational container removably and rotatably installed in the grinding chamber of the main body and provided at an inner bottom with a grinding blade; rotation suppressing means for selectively suppressing a rotation of the rotational container, the rotation suppressing means being installed in the grinding chamber; a clutch installed on a bottom of the rotational container to rotatably support the grinding blade, the clutch allowing only the grinding blade to rotate when the rotation of the rotational container is suppressed by the rotation suppressing means and allowing both the rotational container and the grinding blade to simultaneously rotate when the rotation of the rotational container is not suppressed by the rotation suppressing means; a rotational container cover for closing an opened top of the rotational container; a grinding container removably installed in the rotational container to grind the beans, the grinding blade installed on the bottom of the rotational container being located in the grinding container; rotational container fixing means for preventing the rotational container from seceding while rotatably supporting the rotational container, the rotational container fixing means being installed on an entrance of the grinding chamber of the main body; a heating container removably installed in the heating chamber to heat the bean juice dispensed from the rotational container through a bean juice guide; and a heating container cover for closing an opened top of the heating container.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description of the present invention are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.